


Of Rey and Water

by ImpossibleClair



Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: One Shot Collection, Rey - Freeform, Star Wars - Freeform, The Last Jedi - Freeform, i just wanted to explore rey's experiences with water because she is a desert child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 07:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13243419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpossibleClair/pseuds/ImpossibleClair
Summary: Rey had dreamed about the universe, but she had never imagined it contained so much water.





	1. The Shower

It wasn’t so bad, really, once she had it figured out.

Granted, figuring out the basics had taken some time and the minorly embarrassing act of asking someone to explain them to her. But after that, she figured, it’d be plain sailing. 

She pressed the red button, jumping only slightly at the gurgling rush of water in hidden pipes. She jumped considerably higher when water blasted down on her, utterly freezing. She yelped, almost slipped, and fumbled blindly for the lever which controlled the temperature. Finally gripping it, she tugged it hard to the right. For a second, the water remained icy. Then it warmed, rapidly, and soon she was wrenching the lever back to the left in a desperate attempt to save her skin before it melted right off her flesh. With a bit of tweaking and a considerable exercising of caution, she managed to find a balance. It was a little on the cold side, but she found she preferred it that way. After so many years spent in blistering heat, where even the coldest water was warm, the cool droplets cascading down on her were heavenly. 

She scrubbed at her skin, combed her fingers through her hair and wrung it out. She watched as she-didn’t-even-know-how-many years worth of dirt and sweat swirled away down the drain. She felt light; was this true freedom? Was this – the state of being without yesterday’s effort stuck in every pore – what peace felt like? 

She turned her face into the spray. It was a little harsher than she’d like, but the sensation was like nothing she’d ever felt. Water ran through her hair; it pooled in her ears and caught in her eyelashes; it snaked down her neck and slid down her back and made her shiver with its chill. 

She loved it.


	2. The Ocean

She’d never seen so much water before. 

It stretched away to the horizon, glinting in the dying light. The sand here was different, too. It wasn’t hot, dry and gritty. It was damp, pounded soft by hundreds of years of waves. Rey crouched down and picked something white out of the sediment; it was a shell, conical, patterned with specks of pink. She turned it over in her fingers, then set it carefully back into its place.

The waves were washing high on the beach. It had startled her, the first day, to walk away from a sandy shoreline and return to find it completely gone. It had taken a few days to realise that the ocean moved, creeping up the beach all the way to the base of the cliff and back again almost twice a day.

It was coming in now, advancing a wave at a time. The trailing edge of a wave licked at the toe of her boot, and she stepped back. She looked around. It was just her. Even the unusual seabirds that lived on the island seemed to have found somewhere else to be. Just her and the ocean.

Venturing up to drier sand, she sat and pulled off her boots. She unbuckled her belts and shed her vest and sleeves as well. The sand felt different under bare feet. It stuck to her skin, cold and wet. Her toes left imprints as she trod down to the water. When the first wave washed over her ankles, she squeaked and jumped backwards. It was cold, and the sheer mobility of it was startling. Water in the desert never moved. 

,p>Berating herself for being so silly, she waded deeper. The breaking waves formed foamy fronts of water which washed against her legs. They were gentle at first, lapping lazily around her knees. The sand under the water was silky and fluid; it sucked hungrily at her feet. Along with the extra effort of walking through water, it made it a lot harder than Rey had expected to wade out to the breakers.

She was chest-deep when the wave caught her. It rose before her, building, and she waited for the leading edge to curl and form into foam. Not until it was almost upon her did she realise the breaking point was where she stood. She had no time to turn or to run; the wave took her full-force. It crashed into her, tossing her backwards. She fell, was snagged by the wave and tossed back to the shallows. 

The panic when her head went under was immediate. She thrashed, instinctively trying to push herself to the surface. But the water was swirling all around her, rolling her like a ragdoll, roaring in her ears. It thrust itself into her nose, down her throat, and for what felt like hours, her lungs ached for air. Then her shoulder found sand, and she flipped herself upright, drawing a desperate breath. Another wave, smaller and broken, washed against her face. She spat water and dragged herself to her feet, staggering a few steps further, out of the worst of the waves. 

She collapsed at the edge of the water. Her eyes and nose were streaming, stinging from the salt. Her whole head felt like it was full of water. Her chest ached. On her hands and knees, she coughed violently, trying to rid her lungs of seawater. It made her stomach churn, and her coughs swiftly became retches, swallowed water coming up in painful bursts. 

Crawling out of the water’s reach, she rolled onto her back and looked up at the sky. The suns had almost fully set, and the first stars had started peeking through night’s veil. She took a deep breath, sucking in the cold air to fill her aching lungs. She remained there, watching the stars come out, feeling the blissful rush of air in and out of her lungs as her heart gradually calmed to a steady beat.

Perhaps, she thought, she should learn to swim before she tried that again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably my favourite of the five. I wanted to write something which was a little more untamed than the previous story, and the ocean is perfect for that. I tried to make it slightly comedic as well, I hope it worked. Wondering if I should do one of these about Rey actually learning to swim...

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of roughly five one-shots, each considering Rey's reactions/relationship with a form of water. I wanted to explore her character a bit through this, since she comes from a desert planet and all, and while this one feels a bit clunky to me, I really enjoyed writing it.  
> Happy reading!


End file.
